SW:TOR. The good, the bad, the good

January 16th, 2012, 21:29

I'm enjoying it reasonably well, in some ways it's nice to experience a WOW like game at the beginning again, back when everyone is still running non max level instances and the money you get from quests is actually a big deal.

There are things it does better then WoW and things it does worse. I enjoy the story bits, definitely not up to KoTOR, but still the best attempt at creating story in a MMO that I have seen.

PVP has potential but needs work. The bolster system doesn't work that well in practice, but adding a lvl 50 tier will help a lot. Lag in PVP is awful for some people which is a major issue. I think adding a within faction pvp warzone (huttball) was a great way to deal with faction related Queue times without losing within server community the same way that cross realm BGs did.

Originally Posted by fadedc
PVP has potential but needs work. The bolster system doesn't work that well in practice, but adding a lvl 50 tier will help a lot. Lag in PVP is awful for some people which is a major issue. I think adding a within faction pvp warzone (huttball) was a great way to deal with faction related Queue times without losing within server community the same way that cross realm BGs did.

Cross-realm… /spit. I have a personal theory that Warcraft suffered from it.

It was a very mixed bag. On my server Q times were about 30 minutes for Alliance. Cross server BGs reduced that to about 1 minute. I can't tell you how much of a quality of life improvement that was. But as you obviously know it also reduced the connection and identification to people on your own server. Overall I was willing to give that up to not have a 30 minute wait, but SWTOR manages to have the best of both worlds and I have to give them credit for that.

Originally Posted by hishadow
Cross-realm /spit. I have a personal theory that Warcraft suffered from it.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Do you PvP - and if so, what do you think of it?

I do, but not a lot. I find it okay, but little more than that. People who don't like PvP in WoW, probably won't like PvP in TOR either. The only real difference is not having cross realm battles, with whatever pros and cons people feel such have.

Originally Posted by Maylander
I do, but not a lot. I find it okay, but little more than that. People who don't like PvP in WoW, probably won't like PvP in TOR either. The only real difference is not having cross realm battles, with whatever pros and cons people feel such have.

So, you don't think the actual gameplay during PvP is much different from WoW?

Actually, I really like the potential of PvP in TOR - but I find the engine so bad that I doubt it can be saved.

Originally Posted by fadedc
By the engine, do you mean the game mechanics, or the technology (ie the significant pvp lag experienced by many)?

The technology.

Game mechanics can be tweaked and I'm fine with most of them, actually.

But I need the actual gameplay/combat to be smooth and responsive, and I need decent FPS when in proximity to more than a dozen players.

This game slows to a crawl when 16+ people are fighting in the same location. I have no idea how they expect to solve this for world PvP.

I have a very high-end rig, and even during small WZs - the performance is lackluster.

The "ability delay" issue is very, very bad - but that's separate from the actual performance. So, we're talking at least two very serious issues.

Given how the game has been in beta for a long time, I don't see any hope of changing these basic things. They're part of the core of the game.

Actually, there's a 3rd issue - and that's combat feedback. They have a seriously poor sound design in terms of combat feedback. You have no real sense of your attacks connecting beyond the myriad of numbers popping up. As a lightsaber dude - all the sounds are nearly identical lightsaber slash sounds - and you have no way of knowing which one of your attacks is actually being performed - unless you look at the hotbar icons.

They need to implement rigidly distinct sounds for all unique effects, and they need to use symbols and colors to communicate CLEARLY what's happening during the chaos of combat.

In WoW, which has the best PvP combat system I know if - you have a very fair chance of knowing what's happening. Sounds are unique - and no one has to wonder if you've been, say, feared - because there's a huge sign over your character to communicate that.

Then they have a horrible TAB-targeting algorithm. The game should always target the player in closest proximity if you press tab - but it doesn't do that in TOR. I'm not sure what's happening, but I have a VERY hard time targeting during the chaos of combat.

Also, they need to make the arrow pointing at your target another color. Red is the same color as everything else during combat. It should be bigger and it should be, say, yellow or orange. Also, animating it would help.

Ability delay and lag are a huge problem for me as well in warzones. I play a sniper, and before I can use most of my abilties I have to crouch first which takes a GCD, and then cast the equivelent to a 1.5-2.5 second spell. By the time the game recognizes I've crouched, recognizes I've started the second ability, then resolves it, I'm often either dead, CC'd, or my target has moved halfway across the board. If there are only a couple people nearby I may be able to function, but any more then that and I may as well not even bother trying.

In terms of sound and effects, some of the sniper abilities are really cool and distinctive while others look and sound exactly the same.

Originally Posted by Maylander
I don't have that issue, and my rig is not state of the art anymore (though it's still rather solid). I've seen tons of complaints though, without any specific pattern in terms of hardware.

Anyway, when I refer to PvP I mean it boils down to Warzones = Battlegrounds. There are PvP related activities in both games beyond the Warzones/BGs, but very little incentive to do it.

It's not that the game is unplayable in WZs - and it's not that you can't get smooth framerates during combat.

It's that, say, during Huttball when you have 10 people standing around you - the performance drops and you get a game that doesn't seem to respond very well.

I still get ~20 FPS during hectic combat (But I have a 6990 card) - but coupled with the poor responsiveness - the game is almost unplayable as a melee character. If you're a ranged character, especially with a lot of channelled abilities you don't really notice it.

It's not a bug, glitch, or hardware specific. It's the engine. I'm absolutely certain of it.

I play a defense specced Guardian, but I really don't have any issues with response times. At least not beyond animations - animations tend to take longer than the actual cast or channel time of an ability, which often makes timing hard. The animations are rather cool and all, but the slow downs can be quite an issue in PvP.

Example: Sages have a skill called Project, which throws an object at someone. The cast is instant, but the animation slows down the actual hit for 1-2 seconds. To make matters worse, Sorcerers (the mirror class of the Sage) are supposed to be identical to Sages, but their lightning ability has a much faster animation, so it actually hits instantly instead of 1-2 seconds later.

The animation issue is not really a concern in PvE, as a second here or there rarely matters. However, in PvP it's certainly an issue.

The JC also have lots of abilities said to be instant that require you to not move for 1-2 seconds because otherwise the animation break and the effect doesn't happen, but the ability endup in cooldown. At least project happen event if you move.

- Gamestop employee said that they had been informed that SW:TOR was F2P from September on.

They probably meant the Trial thing ?

- A Saturn employee (Saturn = German electronics chain) instead informed me that SW:TOR will become F2P at the end of October.

He also said that all bought/remaining ? Game Time Cards will from then on be transferred/become into "Points" from then on - I assume that he probably meant the so-called "Cartel Coins" which will come when everything becomes F2P.

I have finally bought the whole game (has become cheap here, standard version), but I can't play yet because I didn't register any Game Time Card yet - neither did I give in to an abonnement / a subscription.

I have even found out that one just cannot use the Trial when one has aready installed & registered the bare game.

I wonder if this is true for the "Friends" program, too ?

Since I've found out that there are a few benefits of being a "normal" player until F2P starts http://www.swtor.com/free , I wanted to buy such a Game Time Card regardless - but I'm not sure whether I should rather buy it now or wait until they might become cheaper (?) just short before turning everything into F2P ? - If ever, that is.

—  Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius  and a lot of courage  to move in the opposite direction. (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

This fall, yes. However, I rather tend to believe that it would be rather either

- November
- December, fitting to the original Launch Date.

—  Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius  and a lot of courage  to move in the opposite direction. (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)